Scott- I'm a big Film Noir sort of guy. I love deep dark shadows contrasted with white light and interestingly shaped Shadows (and I'm mostly color blind so it keeps me from messing stuff up when I move renders to Photoshop for touch ups) but I can see (especially after taking in your render thread with everything beautifully lit) where it may be darker than you prefer.
I've been experimenting with overexposing some areas in a render to leach out colors to make the darks even darker. I've had some success and a lot of failure. I'll see if I can find a render where I overexposed an area on purpose.